“My lord, if you desire, I’ll turn over these stone tablets till they’re dog-eared.”
“Heaven and Mardi!—Go on, Babbalanja.”
“’Twas thus. These were tombs burst open by volcanic throes; and hither hurled from the lowermost vaults of the lagoon. All Mardi’s rocks are one wide resurrection. But look. Here, now, a pretty story’s told. Ah, little thought these grand old lords, that lived and roared before the flood, that they would come to this. Here, King Media, look and learn.”
He looked; and saw a picture petrified, and plain as any on the pediments of Petra.
It seemed a stately banquet of the dead, where lords in skeletons were ranged around a board heaped up with fossil fruits, and flanked with vitreous vases, grinning like empty skulls. There they sat, exchanging rigid courtesies. One’s hand was on his stony heart; his other pledged a lord who held a hollow beaker. Another sat, with earnest face beneath a mitred brow. He seemed to whisper in the ear of one who listened trustingly. But on the chest of him who wore the miter, an adder lay, close-coiled in flint.
At the further end, was raised a throne, its canopy surmounted by a crown, in which now rested the likeness of a raven on an egg.
The throne was void. But half-concealed by drapery, behind the goodliest lord, sideway leaned a figure diademed, a lifted poniard in its hand:—a monarch fossilized in very act of murdering his guest.
“Most high and sacred majesty!” cried Babbalanja, bowing to his feet.
While all stood gazing on this sight, there came two servitors of Media’s, who besought of Babbalanja to settle a dispute, concerning certain tracings upon the islet’s other side.
Thither we followed them.